This weekend our family went to Fred’s folks’ farm to visit-and do farm things. Included on the list of things we wanted to accomplish during our visit was to collect hickory nuts for the Woods to Food project. On Saturday morning Henry and I walked through some fields to see if we could find any hickory nuts. Fred’s mom and dad said they had seen zero hickory nuts this year, but like a good daughter-in-law, I was skeptical. And, turns out they were right! Go figure that a farmer would know his own farm! We found several hickory trees and not one nut. I even hung from the lower branches and shook the trees hoping some nuts would fall, to no avail.
When we got back to Columbia I asked a couple foresters who work state wide and they both said this is a very poor crop year for hickory nuts. Our MO Dept. of Conservation nursery manager told me that hickory trees only have a good crop of nuts every two to three years and the past two years hickories have had good nut production. So, he expected this to be a poor year, hickory nut wise. In fact several squirrel hunters have apparently called in asking where the hickory nuts are. Squirrel hunters tend to focus their efforts around hickory trees this time of year because they know that’s where the squirrels will be-feeding on the hickory nuts. Well, I NEED HICKORY NUTS, TOO (said while stomping). Humph. There are something like four h. nut recipes in Cooking Wild . . .and they really look good!
Before this weekend I was hoping to be picky and harvest only shellbark hickory nuts. Are you familiar with shellbark hickory? It looks like shagbark hickory except the bark in more stripy rather than platy when it peels away from the tree. And, shellbark tends to grow on sites with deeper, more fertile soil. They are not as common as shagbark hickory, but produce a much bigger nut than any of our other Missouri hickory trees. Anyway, now I’m apparently desperate for any hickory nuts.
We’ll see. Not all hope is lost yet. In fact, do you know of any hickory trees that are producing nuts in the Boone County area? Is so, please let us know. You can comment on this post. And, if a pile of hickory nuts suddenly showed up at our front stoop, I’d consider it a gift offering and borderline religious experience.
Until then, the hunt for the elusive hickory nut continues.
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| Shellbark Hickory Tree |
Before this weekend I was hoping to be picky and harvest only shellbark hickory nuts. Are you familiar with shellbark hickory? It looks like shagbark hickory except the bark in more stripy rather than platy when it peels away from the tree. And, shellbark tends to grow on sites with deeper, more fertile soil. They are not as common as shagbark hickory, but produce a much bigger nut than any of our other Missouri hickory trees. Anyway, now I’m apparently desperate for any hickory nuts.
We’ll see. Not all hope is lost yet. In fact, do you know of any hickory trees that are producing nuts in the Boone County area? Is so, please let us know. You can comment on this post. And, if a pile of hickory nuts suddenly showed up at our front stoop, I’d consider it a gift offering and borderline religious experience.
Until then, the hunt for the elusive hickory nut continues.
3 comments:
My dad has been bow hunting nearly every day, so I asked him, and there apparently aren't any hickory nuts in Paydown either.
No Nuts in Jefferson City
Interesting. How about persimmons. Anybody seeing persimmons?
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